I don't know too much about Jim Rickards, just found this to be an interesting video about the overall economy and some tidbits about what our government agencies are up to. The video is a 45 minutes long interview of sorts and discussion. Just posting in the event other are interested.

Unless Congress takes action, the U.S. will hit its debt limit on Mar. 16, but would begin taking "extraordinary measures" to finance the government on a temporary basis, according to the U.S. Treasury. In a Friday morning letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that his office will be forced to suspend the issuance of State and Local Government Series securities on Mar. 13 unless the debt limit is decreased. "Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible," Lew wrote in his letter. The...

Remember when Barack Obama insisted that there wasnâ€™t a â€śsmidgen of corruptionâ€ť in his administration related to the IRS scandal? Good times, good times. The discovery of tens of thousands of e-mails from Lois Lerner, the central figure in the IRS targeting of conservative non-profits, may rewrite the scandal â€” and may end up with criminal charges for Lerner:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Federal investigators are looking for possible criminal activity in connection with the missing emails of a central figure in the Internal Revenue serviceÂ’s targeting scandal.The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration testified at a House...

It’s right there in the Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” Which is why this latest episode of lawlessness from the administration so particularly galling. “The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations,” The...

US Macro Collapses To 11-Month Lows, 88% Of Data Has Missed In February Despite the total and utter cognitive dissonance of talking-heads on mainstream media channels, the US economic data is not 'strong', is not 'goldilocks', is not 'decoupled', is not 'solid'. In fact, it's absolutely terrible. Bloomberg's US Macro data indicator which tracks both beats-and-misses and improvement/deterioration in data - is at 11-month lows. February alone has seen 29 data items miss expectations (from retail sales to industrial production)with only 4 data points beating expectations (including the constantly revised nonfarm payrolls data which so many hang their hat on)....

EXCERPT—--the WH wants you to consider a retirement plan that will invest in nothing but US government debt. Any financial professional who advised this—would be sued for malpractice. But asset allocation is merely one of the problems with the new “myRA” fund rolling out this month. A form of Roth IRA that allows people to save after-tax dollars and watch them grow tax-free until retirement, the new myRA offers a single investment option. It’s a private version of the G Fund that is available to federal workers and has lately been delivering annual returns of about 2% on its portfolio...

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department told the Washington Free Beacon that survival kits being ordered for government workers at every major bank in the United States are for “emergency preparedness.” .......“The solicitation is to replace aging kits and provide kits at additional location out of a preponderance of caution,” Collins added. Once the government finds a bidder, each of OCC’s 3,814 employees will receive a survival kit, which will come in a fanny-pack or backpack that can fit all of the items, including a 33-piece personal first aid kit with “decongestant tablets,” a variety of bandages, and medicines. The...

The Department of Treasury is seeking to order survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. The emergency supplies would be for every employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducts on-site reviews of banks throughout the country. The survival kit includes everything from water purification tablets to solar blankets. The government is willing to spend up to $200,000 on the kits, according to the solicitation released on Dec. 4. The survival kits must come in a fanny-pack or backpack that can fit all of...

The Department of Treasury is spending $200,000 on survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. As FreeBeacon reports, survival kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United States and includes a solar blanket, food bar, water-purification tablets, and dust mask (among other things). The question, obviously, is just what do they know that the rest of us don't? As Free Beacon reports,

The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government. During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone...

There are very few market indicators that can predict recessions without sending out false positives. The yield curve is one of them. At a breakfast earlier today, LPL Financial's Jeffrey Kleintop noted that the yield curve inverted just prior to every U.S. recession in the past 50 years. "That is seven out of seven times — a perfect forecasting track record," he reiterated. The yield curve is inverted when short-term interest rates (e.g. the 3-year Treasury) are higher than long-term interest rates (e.g. the 10-year Treasury yield). "The yield curve inversion usually takes place about 12 months before the start...

(Reuters) - Two powerful congressmen have opened separate inquiries into whether a Department of the Treasury bureau charged with policing money laundering may have flouted federal hiring rules, including regulations that require military veterans be given preference for government jobs. :snip: Reuters reported on May 2 that the Treasury had temporarily suspended FinCEN’s hiring authority and forced it to rescind 11 job offers after a federal government labor watchdog determined that the bureau had illegally screened candidates in a quest to hire only lawyers for certain positions. :snip: "The fact that FinCEN allegedly rejected pools of candidates made up of...

Back in mid-March, there was a brief scare after the start of the Ukraine conflict, when Fed custody holdings plunged by a record $104.5 billion (if promptly bouncing back the following week), leading many to believe that Russia may have dumped its Treasurys, or at least change its bond custodian. We noted that we wouldn't have a definitive answer until the May TIC number came out to know for sure how much Russia had sold, or if indeed, anything. Moments ago the May TIC numbers did come out, and as expected, Russia indeed dumped a record $26 billion, or some...

With Ukraine no longer paying for Russian gaz, and with Gazprom making it clear Kiev has to a) first pay the overdue $2+ billion in invoice and then b) prepay some $5 billion in gas until the end of the year of Europe gets it, it was only a matter of time before the US Treasury stepped in and paid off part or all of Gazprom's demands. That time is now, when moments ago Jack Lew announced a $1 billion loan guarantee for Ukraine - very much the same way that the US provided billions in loan guarnatees for the...

When I say â€śdebts,â€ť I donâ€™t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parentsâ€™ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The â€śdebtsâ€ť here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSAâ€™s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they werenâ€™t supposed to have. And now, somehow, itâ€™s juniorâ€™s problem.But wait. It gets worse. When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960, her...

U.S. casinos may soon have to vet where their high rollers' funds come from under a requirement being developed by the U.S. Treasury Department, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move is part of a push to address longstanding regulatory and law enforcement concerns that criminals can use casinos, which have not historically been as closely monitored as banks for compliance with anti-money laundering laws, to convert proceeds of crime into money that appears clean. Under current law, casinos are required to report suspicious activity. A customer who used a large sum of cash to buy chips,...

Treasury Department officials didn't check to make sure they had the legal authority to delay an Obamacare mandate before issuing guidance that flouted the text of the law, a department official told House investigators. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur, who announced the employer mandate delay in a blog post, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he didn't remember anyone considering the legal basis for the delay. "Did anyone in the Department of the Treasury inquire into the legal authority for the delays?" Mazur was asked. "I don't recall anything along those lines, no," he...

At the latest Bloomberg Breakfast event held in New York on 18th March, David S Cohen, Under Secretary of the US Department of the Treasury, discussed the challenges of digital currencies as part of a broader conversation with the media outlet’s Matt Miller to air on Bloomberg TV. In the hour-long talk, Cohen spoke about the organisation’s role as a global leader in educating consumers and governments on the evolving issue, paying a particular interest to the potential illicit uses of digital currencies, as well as the measures it is willing to take to ensure their proper use. Most notably,...

Last month we wrote about the threatening phone call from then-Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner to the head of the parent company of Standard & Poor's after S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011. Now we learn that Mr. Geithner placed the call to McGraw Hill Chairman and CEO Harold McGraw III just five minutes after leaving an Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama. This detail, drawing on information contained in Mr. Geithner's public schedule, was included late yesterday in a filing by S&P in federal court in the Central District of California. The Department of Justice...

The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an...

This is coming from inside Obamaâ€™s own administration. Itâ€™s not Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld talking. And still Obama insists on pandering to Iran, letting it go nuclear and accusing skeptics of seeking war. The Obama administration charged that Tehran has allowed senior al Qaeda members operating from Iranian soil to facilitate the movement of Sunni fighters into Syria.The allegation by the Treasury Department on Thursday would suggest that elements of Iranâ€™s government or military were at least tacitly supporting the opposing sides of Syriaâ€™s civil war.Iranian officials denied the accusations, saying Washington was harming diplomatic efforts aimed at ending...

The U.S. is likely to exhaust its borrowing authority on the earlier side of what Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had estimated, he said in a letter to Congressional leaders on Wednesday. Lew warned in the new letter that Congress will likely need to raise the debt ceiling by late February to avoid a potential default on the country's obligations. As part of the bill to reopen the government in mid-October, the debt limit was suspended through Feb. 7. The Treasury can use so-called "extraordinary measures" after that point to keep borrowing and paying the nation's bills for a few weeks...

If anyone thinks "Bridgegate" is an example of political bullying and abuse of power, then the sworn (under penalty of perjury) allegation of a corporate heavy hitter against Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is off the charts. Bloomberg Businessweek reports: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told McGraw Hill Financial Inc. Chairman Harold W. McGraw III in 2011 that Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. debt would be met by a response, S&P said. S&P filed a declaration by McGraw yesterday in federal court in Santa Ana, California, as part of a request to force the U.S. to...

A week from now, the Federal Reserve System will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. Resulting from secret negotiations between bankers and politicians at Jekyll Island, the Fed's creation established a banking cartel and a board of government overseers that has grown ever stronger through the years. One would think this anniversary would elicit some sort of public recognition of the Fed's growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning. But just like the...

On December 23rd, the Federal Reserve will turn 100 years old. We can look back on its few successes... but its many failures far outweigh any positives it may have achieved. What's at stake now is the Fed's future. And it looks bleak. In fact, the Fed won't even exist in 100 years... America's First Three Central Banks Central banks and fiat money have been a major point of contention ever since the founding of America. Between 1775 and 1779, as the colonies delved deeper into rebellion, the fiat money supply grew by over 5,000%. Within just four years, the...

Between Oct. 1, 2013, the first day of fiscal 2014, and Nov. 14—which was less than a month after Congress agreed to temporarily suspend the legal limit on the federal debt—the Treasury was forced to issue more than $1 trillion in new debt. During that time, according to the Daily Treasury Statement, the Treasury issued $1,014,215,000,000 in new bills, notes, bonds and other securities. The government needed this $1,014,215,000,000 to cover government obligations and expenses that exceeded the $255,080,000,000 it raked in through tax revenues during the same six-week period. Where did that combined $1,014,215,000,000 in newly borrowed money and...

On September 17, 2008, the US total debt stood at $10.615 trillion and The Fed’s balance sheet was almost $1 trillion ($996 billion). Since that time, US total debt has skyrockets to … the statutory debt limit! That means that over President Obama’s Presidency (and the last couple of months of Bush’s Presidency), total debt climbs over $6 trillion. debtceilgst And The Fed’s balance sheet rose over $2.78 trillion. dcfeed With The Fed enabling massive Federal government waste (and Janet Yellen likely a willing enabler). Democrats and President Obama are refusing to negotiate on the budget or the debt ceiling....

You know how it is, you're going along with the lies that are told every day about "recovery" and "economic conditions are kinda "OK" and "we're doing all right" and then the mainstream media and "economists" like Goldman's Alec Phillips step on their ***** and tell the truth by accident. Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., IHS Inc. (IHS) and BNP Paribas SA said they expect the Treasury to husband the tax money it collects to make sure it can meet interest and principal payments on the nation’s debt. Other obligations, from salaries of government workers to payments to defense...

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, responsible for enforcing economic and trade sanctions against Iran and Syria, is being hindered because it has been pared down to a “skeleton crew” by the government shutdown, a Treasury official tells ABC News. “This massively reduced staffing not only impairs OFAC’s ability to execute its mission, it also undermines [the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes] broader efforts to combat money laundering and illicit finance, protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system, and disrupt the financial underpinnings of our adversaries,” according to the official, who asked not...

Lew Op-Ed: U.S. Failure to Pay Bills Hurts Everyone 10/3/2013 WASHINGTON – In an op-ed to be published in the October 4, 2013 edition of USA TODAY, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew discusses the importance of Congress raising the debt limit immediately to avoid self-inflicted wounds that could impede economic growth and create uncertainty for families and businesses. The text of the piece follows: U.S. failure to pay bills hurts everyone If Congress does not raise the debt limit soon, seniors, veterans, kids, among others, are at risk. By Jack Lew It might be hard to believe, but there is...

The Treasury Department has begun using the last set of accounting maneuvers at its disposal to allow the government to keep paying its bills until Congress raises the country’s borrowing limit, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told congressional leaders Tuesday night. In a letter, Lew reiterated that if the debt ceiling is not raised by Oct. 17 the government will not be able to meet all its financial commitments, such as making payments to U.S. debt holders, government contractors and Social Security recipients “If we have insufficient cash on hand, it would be impossible for the United States of America to...

So much for the scare mongering. The Federal government shut down (or 40% of it) and the reaction in the Dow? Up 52 points as of 2:15pm EST. dow100113 The US Treasury 10 year rate also rose by 3.6 basis points. ust10100113 Gold? Dropped like a rock, but has risen slightly. gold100113 And a today’s 4 Week Treasury Bills Auction High Yield spiked. 4mthigh100113 So much for the “flight to quality” meme from the government shutdown.

<p>WASHINGTON — The Treasury will only have $30 billion of cash on hand by mid-October, putting the United States on the precipice of an unprecedented default, the department said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The warning puts additional pressure on a hamstrung Congress, which is already struggling to prevent the federal government from shutting down over a budget impasse on Oct. 1.</p>

While stocks have slipped for four consecutive days as investors turn their attention to Washington and the looming debt limit, the S&P 500 and Dow are just 2% from the all-time highs reached last week. In addition to the muted market action, a key metric for measuring market fear and volatility, the VIX (VIX), is indicating calm markets. While CNNMoney's Fear & Greed Index has ticked just slightly into "Fear" mode, from neutral earlier in the week. "I think if you look at the calm out there, it's a bit greater than it should be," Lew said at the Bloomberg...

The markets were stunned by The Fed’s decision last week not to begin tapering. Investors reacted … like deer in the headlights. deerheads Take the Dow Jones Industrial Average. After initial optimism on The Fed’s “No Taper” message, it has turned down. djiapostfomce The 10 year Treasury yield dropped with The Fed announcement and has continued to drift downwards. ust10postfomc As would be expected, both mortgage rates (yellow) and the Fannie Mae 30 year current coupon rate have drifted downwards. mtgratepostfomc Gold? Gold prices surged initially but had drifted downwards to about pre-announcement levels. goldpostfomc The good news? Both the...

Poor Larry Summers. He withdrew his candidacy as the Federal Reserve Board Chairman over fears of a brutal Senate confirmation hearing. Now we are left with former University of California labor economist Janet Yellen as the leading candidate. Yellen was (allegedly) the architect of the quantitative easing programs to reduce unemployment (better known as the weak money rally). And Yellen is the darling of the labor unions because of her activist policies on labor. Hence, President Obama and Democrats are proudly supporting her appointment. “The philosophy of Janet Yellen is activism of government policy to achieve objectives,” said Allen Sinai,...

Poor Larry Summers. He withdrew his candidacy as the Federal Reserve Board Chairman over fears of a brutal Senate confirmation hearing. Now we are left with former University of California labor economist Janet Yellen as the leading candidate. Yellen was (allegedly) the architect of the quantitative easing programs to reduce unemployment (better known as the weak money rally). And Yellen is the darling of the labor unions because of her activist policies on labor. “The philosophy of Janet Yellen is activism of government policy to achieve objectives,” said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. Oh great. We have activist...

Bernanke’s surprise (NO TAPER) resulted in a large decline in the 10 year Treasury yield yesterday and a small rebound today. ust10091913 But despite the surprise, the yield curve has declined only slightly compared to its increase after May 1st. yc091813 World bond markets are in a sea of green, particularly the UK and Italy. Even beleaguered Greece dropped 21 basis points in 10 year sovereign yield. wbm091913 Precious metals (gold, silver) soared on The Fed’s Taper bluff. goldsilvfed2 To quote The Who, “We won’t get fooled again!”

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released its update to QE: no change. The market was expecting $5 billion to be cuts from Treasury purchases, but nada. fedannouince Here is the redlined FOMC statement: 169179285-September-FOMC-Redline The Federal Reserve unexpectedly refrained from reducing the $85 billion pace of monthly bond buying, saying it needs to see more evidence of improvement in the economy. “The Committee decided to await more evidence that progress will be sustained before adjusting the pace of its purchases,” the Federal Open Market Committee said today at the conclusion of a two-day meeting in Washington. While “downside risks”...

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released its update to QE: no change. The market was expecting $5 billion to be cuts from Treasury purchases, but nada. fedannouince The Federal Reserve unexpectedly refrained from reducing the $85 billion pace of monthly bond buying, saying it needs to see more evidence of improvement in the economy. “The Committee decided to await more evidence that progress will be sustained before adjusting the pace of its purchases,” the Federal Open Market Committee said today at the conclusion of a two-day meeting in Washington. While “downside risks” to the outlook have diminished, “the tightening...

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee is meeting today and tomorrow with an announcement tomorrow afternoon at 2pm EST. Virtually no one is expecting a change in the Fed Funds Target. fedconsesn What everyone is watching is a change in the Fed rate of purchase of Treasuries and Agency Mortgage-backed Securities. 20130917_FOMC If The Fed does nothing, I will be surprised. The most likely “taper” is $5-10 million per month, mostly or all in Treasuries. Agency MBS purchases are likely to remain unchanged. While there is some positive momentum in the economy, real median household income is declining. household-income-monthly-median-growth-since-2000 (1)...

The “Goodbye Larry! (Summers)” Treasury yield decline yesterday was short lived. After Summer pulled out as a candidate for Federal Reserve Chairman, the US Treasury 10 year yield fell 11 basis points yesterday morning, but the exuberance quickly went away. ust10091713. Speaking of interest rates, the National Association of Home Builders Market Index was flat for September compared to August, but missed expectations by the most since April. nahbhbindex09171`3 If we compare the NAHB Index with new home sales, we see a daunting gap between builder “optimism” and reality. nahbnhs091713. And if we include the Bankrate 30 year rate, we...

Rising interest rates are really starting to hit the economy. The Reuters – University of Michigan Survey of Consumer Confidence Sentiment was forecast to be 82.0 but printed at 76.8 after a previous print of 82.1. This is the lowest print in 5 months. Rising Treasury and mortgage rates are definitely a cause of declining consumer confidence. Notice that the 10 year Treasury yield began to decline in mid 2011 and consumer confidence began to rise (green box). Then Treasury rates began rising on May 1st and consumer confidence fell (red box). With a lag. consumerconfid091313 We know that mortgage...

The US economy is straying further and further away from a free-market model and towards a government-controlled, crony economy. We can see the results of the move to government control of the economy in the headwinds. Like in the movie “Idiocracy” where the government orders Brawndo, a green liquid that resembles Gatorade, be used instead of water for crops, the government’s solution to all problems is more government, more regulation, more taxes, etc. Government is what statists crave. Brawndo_Social_Head (1) Here is a partial list (the actual list is way too long) of headwinds facing the economy, the housing market...

Come with me, you the sea of … red. Almost every major nation has seen its 10 year sovereign yields rise today … and over the past 6 months. seofred The US 10 year has climbed over 100 basis points in the last 6 months, close to the UK’s rise. Our Latin American neighbors, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia have seen over 132 basis point increases. Americans spending more on cars and housing helped the economy maintain a “modest to moderate” pace of expansion from early July through late August, even as borrowing costs increased, the Federal Reserve said today. The...

Whether it is a sign of improving economy or worries about a Fed taper, the US Treasury 10 year yield spiked 12 basis points this morning. ust10090313 The yield spike was the most in 2 months. ust10since053 Also on the bad news side of the ledger, the Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States (Weekly) – H.8 divulged that Net Unrealized Gains (Losses) On Available-For-Sale Securities, All Commercial Banks is dropping like a rock and is now in negative territory for the first time since 2010. netlossesh And if we chart the decline in net unrealized gains...

The U.S. Treasury Department sold $29.000 billion of seven-year notes at a yield of 2.221 percent, as demand fell relative to the last auction of securities with the same maturity. ust7auc The bid/cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing the number of bids to the amount of securities sold, fell to 2.43 from 2.54 at the last seven-year note sale, indicating weaker demand. The bid/cover ratio was the lowest since 2.26 at the May 2009, auction. 7ybdrat The same occurred at the last 10 year auction of Treasury debt. Again. back to 2009 levels. bidcover333 Indirect bidder participation (which includes...

After the pounding of war drums along The Potomac for the past several days, The Hill had this interesting piece: “Official: White House seeks Syria response ‘just muscular enough not to get mocked’“ “just enough to be more than symbolic.” Like an iPod filled with President Obama’s speeches like he gave to Queen Elizabeth. You know, just enough to be more than symbolic. Apparently, the perception in the investor community is a collective sigh of relief. Global sovereign yields rose today indicating that investors pulled out of the Treasury markets. wbm082813 And the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 78...

Statist central bankers plan to devalue their respective currencies and risk inflation even if The Fed tapers. Since Central Banks compete with each other, low rate pressures should keep US Treasury rates in line. Central bankers from Japan and the U.K. predicted their new campaigns to encourage expansion will work, sustaining support for global growth even as the Federal Reserve considers a reduction in stimulus. As the annual gathering of central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, drew to a close yesterday, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said his souped-up asset-buying “has started to exert effects” on the...